Ever since a solid date has been constructed and set in stone for the European "and beyond" launch, there's been a fair share of hubbub regarding console price, game releases, competition and the best kind of lunch meat. Regarding many of these questions, Michael Ephraim, boss of Sony Australia, sat down for a short Q&A session. Here are the highlights, in Q&A form.Hey man, why no 20GB SKU?
- "If you look at PS3 sales in the US, and if you look at the sales of our competitor's format, the lead SKU has sold disproportionately better--it makes up about 97 percent of all sales...this also simplifies our manufacturing."
- Depends on demand, but what Sony has heard from people is to go with a single SKU. However, if sales drop off because people wanted the 20GB model and won't drop the extra bit of money, they'll bring it back.
- Since Australia does about 5-7% of Europe's sales, they're planning to get "their fair share" because of the significant percentage of sales ("we are significant--we're not a 1 percent market"). They're also prepared to handle any shortages.
- Nah... the PS2 install base in Australia is over 2 million, whereas the 360 is hovering around 150,000. The Wii? He didn't say. In any case, about 30% of the people will probably adopt the next-gen Sony product (some sort of marketing concept... can't remember), which is a pretty nice number.
